Improvements We Expect in NBA 2K18

The NBA 2k franchise is, arguably, the king of the sports simulation genre.

With excellent gameplay, a stellar MyCareer mode and the deepest franchise mode in major sports gaming, it’s no wonder why millions of fans flock to stores on launch day to pick up the latest basketball offering from 2k Sports.

However, that doesn’t mean the game comes without flaws. From gameplay mechanics to simple cosmetic features, there are still some improvements that we want to see with NBA 2k18.

We believe that these minor and major game play changes would have a dramatic improvement in the quality of players NBA2k18 experience.

These changes mostly focus on the MyPlayer system for MyPark and ProAm, but also touch on general 2k changes.

Minor:

New Parks – Same parks for two years in a row. I know it is just cosmetic, but it would be nice to have a change of scenery, and no, I do not mean hanging lights up.

Expanded Park Stats – It was great that they added more stats to the park this year, it was one of my favorite changes. Now I want them to take it a step further in NBA2k18. I would love it if they separated the stats by each of your myPlayers instead of grouping them all together.

If I’m on my Sharpshooter, I want to see his stats, not my Glass + Sharpshooter + Lockdown etc. The more categories the better too, like matchup stats (Opp FG%, Opp PPG, Etc). I know this wouldn’t be perfect with switching, but it would be better than nothing.

Easier Park Switching/Joining – It would be great if we could join straight into a friend’s park without having to go to our court first. Also, I would like to be able to switch to a different myplayer while in the park and rejoin the same park. Just easy ways to save some time.

Alternate Jerseys for Created Teams – This one is self-explanatory. All NBA teams have alternate uniforms, it would be nice to be able to create alternates for created teams.

Archetype Indicator – This is very minor, but it would be nice to quickly see what archetype people are without going to find their name and checking their badges. A small indictor under their avatar similar to the rep symbol would take care of this.

Badge Status Tracking – myCareer can be a grind… we all know that. It would be amazing if we could see how close we are to earning badges. Just an easy 150/300 next to Dimer or any others would solve this. We know 2k likes to keep the badge requirements secret but a percentage next to the badge name would not give the requirements away.

Major:

Reduce Success from Spamming – It seems like in 2k, spamming wins’ games. Whether its steals, blocks, dribble moves, or whatever, the spammer has an advantage. Someone who jumps for a bad block should be punished. Instead they can either block it on the way down way too easily, or jump again for a good block before the offensive player can go up.

Someone who just spams steals (more for Park) has success because they don’t get punished for fouls. I know a lot of people would hate this, but please reduce broken ankles from spamming dribble moves. When I’m standing still, I shouldn’t be forced to fall over because the offensive player is standing there doing behind the backs.

Less Forced Animations – I’m not sure what the solution is here, but something must change with animations. How annoying is it not being able to pass because someone is climbing up your back in a foul animation from pressing steal? Or being forced into a suction cup screen even when you are not moving that direction? Or getting a 3 second violation because you are stuck posting up and can’t get separation from the defender. Have a center running into a guard off ball? Sorry, you are getting dragged across the court. We would love more freedom of movement.

More Servers – This is low hanging fruit but server problems are such a common complaint that we felt the need to mention it. We aren’t network engineers over here, but we do know that servers have been an issue for nba2k games for far too long.

The whole online experience would be majorly improved if there was less input lag, general lag, disconnects, long loading times, etc. This will have to fixed if they want eleague to be a smooth experience. Did you try to play Park after Dark on Xbox Live? That was a miserable experience and perfect example of the server issues.

Rework Badge Effectiveness – Some HoF badges are absolutely overpowered. Limitless Range, Brick Wall, Deadeye, and Ankle Breaker are just a few of these badges. We all know Steph can hit some deep shots accurately, that doesn’t mean every sharpshooter should be able to hit 50% from beyond the hash marks. We also should be knocked over 40% of the time when running into a screen. This makes the park just a little too cheesy.

Punish Bad Shots– Contested shots go in way too often. Even against badged out lockdowns. Nothing is worse than playing good defense for 23 seconds then have the other team throw up a prayer and sink it.

Same goes for shots off dribble and after dribbling for too long. There was supposed to be a patch that reduced shooting percentages when dribbling around forever but there is no evidence of any change. This “dribble fatigue” needs to be looked at again. Playmakers still dribble back and forth behind HoF brick walls and eventually sink step back threes.

Revamp the myPlayer/Park System – This is a pipe dream, but it would be amazing if we could separate myCareer and myPark. Let the Career guys make characters with no limitations. Keep the archetypes for park, but rework it to add sub archetypes. You pick your main archetype, say Sharpshooter, you get the HoF sharpshooter badges and all relevant attributes cap out in the 90s.

Then you pick your secondary archetype, say lockdown defender. You get either Gold or Silver for the lockdown badges and those attributes cap our in the low 80s. This could give some much-needed variety in the meta game. I know it would be difficult to implement and you would get horrible teammates sometimes, but it would also be great if we could earn real badges in the park.

What do you expect to see in NBA 2k18 this year? Let us know in the comment section below!

NBA 2k18 launches on September 19 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam). Fans can pre-order the game now in one of three separate editions.

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Here at Nba2kLab we try to figure out the advantages/disadvantages of
certain badges and attributes. We run hundreds of tests, while
eliminating as many variables as possible, in order to have a big enough
sample size to where we can draw reasonable conclusions. Our expertise is
mostly in myPark and Pro-am, but our tests can help with other game modes as well. We take pride in helping the community in anyway we can.